


Helping Hands

by caimani



Series: 31 Days of Halloween [15]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Morally Neutral Deceit Sanders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 17:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caimani/pseuds/caimani
Summary: Five times the sides took control of Thomas without him knowing, and one time he asked one of them to do it.





	Helping Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Day 17: Possession
> 
> this one was requested by Anat!! I have a lot of different ideas about Deceit, and I don't necessarily see him as evil. I think he's an interesting and versatile character

Confidence is a hard thing to hang onto, especially when you’re eight and standing all by yourself at the front of a room. The music teacher is sitting at the piano, starting the first few bars of the song he’s auditioning with. Thomas is frozen in dread, his knees locked and his vision starting to black out.

Everyone is staring at him…

What were the lines of the song again?

He’s going to mess up...

And he must have blanked out for a few minutes, but he’s suddenly aware of breath in his lungs and his voice coming out, singing the words of the song. Thomas doesn’t even feel stiff anymore. 

_Remember how much you want to do well on this!_

Boosted by that reminder, Thomas takes a deep breath in the next pause and puts everything he has into the song. 

When it’s over, the other kids in the room clap, and some of them actually look impressed.

“That was very nice, Thomas,” the music teacher says.

Thomas beams with pride.

The audition goes well, and he gets the part he was hoping for in the school play. It’s not a very big part, but he’s happy to perform. He spends plenty of time rehearsing and working on his stage fright, and he doesn’t have any more moments of freezing up.

Which is good, because he’s not sure how he managed to snap out of it… or where that voice in his head came from…

~~~~~

This is an important phone call. It is very important that Thomas pay attention. He should be writing down this information, because he needs to remember it later.

But he’s been up for over twenty-four hours and he’s so exhausted. College is so much strain and he’s been working so hard. His brain can barely focus on keeping his eyes open. He’s only barely holding the phone to his ear and he’s definitely not registering any words being said.

The voice in his ear goes on and on and Thomas’s eyes slowly slide shut.

The next day, a full nine hours later, Thomas wakes up in bed. He blinks at the ceiling for a moment. 

How did he get here? In his pajamas, no less. He’s pretty sure the last thing he was doing was…

Oh no.

Thomas jumps out of bed, nearly slips and falls face first onto the floor, and scrambles towards his desk, where his phone is sitting. Oh no, oh no, oh no. He fell asleep in the middle of the call!

He grabs for his phone, and as he does so, notices a pad of paper and pen sitting next to it. What? Thomas pauses and looks at it.

Written very neatly on the paper are notes. Important details from… from the call. Thomas gapes at it in surprise. Wow. He must have been writing that down unconsciously. That’s some nice handwriting for his unconscious brain.

_Thank you, unconscious brain,_ he thinks.

His brain doesn’t respond.

~~~~~

Moving into a new place brings with it a whole new set of fears and worries. Thomas has been running around all day, not just moving boxes, but making sure he has everything he needs. He’s checked off list after list, getting things at the store. He would probably be back at the store now getting the household cleaners and groceries that he forgot, but night has fallen.

And this is an unfamiliar neighborhood.

And there are a lot more windows in this apartment than Thomas first realized.

In the daylight, all of the natural light makes the place feel warm and alive. But now, with blackened windows on all sides, Thomas feels more than a little anxious. He wants to go and check all the windows to make double sure that nothing’s out there watching him, but… it’s scary.

But… he still needs to at least make sure they’re all shut, right?

Thomas shivers and promises himself that first thing tomorrow, he’s getting blinds and curtains for all the windows. Having something in between himself and the outside world that’s not just a very breakable pane of glass… it’ll help. Probably.

Unsteadily, he finds himself moving to each of the doors and windows, breathing in a regular pattern to try and calm himself down. Locked. Locked. Locked. Kind of a flimsy lock, but still locked. He’ll fix that one soon. Locked. Locked. Locked.

With each window and door checked, Thomas feels a little better inside. When he finally finishes, he collapses onto his bed.

“That was scary,” he mumbles into his sheets. 

He’s so glad he was able to do that. Somehow, he was able to do that.

~~~~~

Sometimes people hurt, and they need comforting. Sometimes, there’s just no words to express your empathy.

Sometimes, all you can do to help is hold them.

Thomas is hugging his friend, as their face is buried into his shoulder. They might still be crying, or that dampness on Thomas’s shirt might be from his own tears earlier. It doesn’t matter. They need this. Their hands are curled around Thomas’s body, although they aren’t holding him quite as tightly anymore.

He briefly wonders if he’s been hugging them enough. Maybe they need some space again?

_No, hold them a bit longer._

Yeah, that’s probably best.

Thomas holds them a little more snugly too. It feels right.

~~~~~

“Besides,” Joan says through the phone speaker. “I sent you those other texts afterwards. Didn’t you read those? I thought they made it pretty clear I was joking.”

Thomas frowns. He checks his phone again. All he has is the _WHERE WERE U LAST NIGHT F WORD FACE??_ text. “Other texts?” he repeats.

“My phone says they sent,” Joan says. “Hmm.”

Logan appears. “Perhaps a problem with your phone?”

Virgil appears too. “Or sabotage…”

“Sabotage?” Roman says. “By… oh, by _Deceit_?”

Thomas makes a shushing motion with his hand. “Uh, I don’t know,” he says, hoping that Joan can’t hear the sides. They probably can’t; the sides are a part of Thomas. They can’t really interact with the physical world. “Maybe it’s just my phone, acting up. Ugh. Sorry.”

“Hey man, don’t sweat it. Sorry you didn’t see them. Hope that doesn’t mean you were pacing around in your living room talking to yourself all morning.”

Thomas laughs nervously. “What? Of course not.”

From behind him, he hears Deceit’s chuckle. The other three sides all glare pointedly at the new arrival.

“You know what!” Thomas says loudly, honestly praying that Joan can’t hear the sides now. “I actually did! You know me,” -- _ugh, unpleasant reminder of that whole lying practice earlier_ \-- “I gotta, uh, talk things out with myself sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, everything’s fine,” Joan says. “I figured you were busy with something.”

“Yeah…” Thomas says. “I promise I’ll make this up to you anyway! Wanna meet up later and hang out somewhere?”

“Sure,” Joan says. “Call though, just in case your phone still isn’t working right.”

“Yeah, I will,” Thomas says. “See ya later.”

“Bye!”

Thomas ends the call and turns on Virgil. “What did you mean by ‘sabotage’?”

Virgil is still glaring hotly at Deceit. “I mean, there’s a chance _he_ deleted those texts.”

“Who, me?” Deceit says. “Why would I do that?”

That doesn’t feel like the right question to be asking here. “How would he do that?” Thomas says. “He’s a side. He can’t… actually do things that affect more than me, right?”

Logan and Virgil exchange glances. Roman is looking away, with a small grimace on his face. 

“What?” Thomas says warily.

“Do you really want to know?” Deceit says with a taunt in his tone.

Thomas sighs. This again. “Yeah, I want to know if you guys can like, manifest physically in the real world or not! Is that… something you guys can do?”

He looks hopefully at Logan, half dreading the answer.

“We can’t manifest physically,” Logan says. “But… we can… affect the physical world around you in a different way.”

“How?”

“This isn’t going to sound good, no matter how you put it,” Virgil interrupts.

“He deserves to know!” Roman says.

“You’ve all done it,” Deceit says. “Even Patton.”

“Done what?”

“Possessed you…” Virgil says in a whisper.

Thomas is thunderstruck by that revelation. “...what?” he breathes.

“Only to help you, kiddo!” Patton says, rising up quickly. “And it’s only been a handful of times, believe me. Just, in moments when you’re having a hard time, we just give you little pushes. Help you out a bit. Like when you’re comforting your friends.”

“Or you need to remember something,” Logan says.

“Or you have stage fright,” Roman adds.

“Or when you’ve forgotten something,” Virgil says.

“We’re only here to help you,” Patton says. “You can trust us. We’re all a part of you, and we only want what’s best for you. Any time we take over for a bit, we’re only helping you do whatever you were trying to do anyway.”

Okay… that… that makes sense. It’s still going to take Thomas a lot of time to accept this news. That his sides can… take over his body. And he wasn’t even aware of it until now. He’s glad he knows, but the knowledge brings a whole new level to his understanding of himself and his sides. He turns over Patton’s words again, soaking in his words. 

Wait… 

“So why would you mess with my phone?” Thomas says, rounding on Deceit.

Deceit shrugs. “I don’t know. It was a confusing time. You didn’t know what you knew, or didn’t know.”

“Were you just trying to get me to lie to my friend?” Thomas asks.

“No.” And Deceit sinks down before Thomas can ask anything else.

~~~~~

“Okay, Logan, are you ready?” Thomas says under his breath.

 _This seems like a frivolous use of this ability of ours_ , Logan’s voice echoes in Thomas’s head.

“Consider it making up for not letting me know about it sooner,” Thomas says. “And you said you guys only help out when it’s something I’m already doing, right?”

_That is correct, to my knowledge._

“Well,” Thomas’s voice goes quieter as his opponent approaches. “I’ve already accepted this rap battle. And I might need a bit of help getting through it.”

Logan sighs. _Very well… you do not make the most compelling argument, but I will admit I am excited to do this._

Yes! Thomas grins as he steps up to his opponent. This is going to be so much fun, for both him and Logan.


End file.
